Timed my three hour drive just right and met my dad at Secret Lake #3 right at 10:00. Every lake and river I drove by, and there were many, had boats full of fishermen enjoying a sunny, but chilly, opening morning. By the time Dad and I began moving the canoe through the woods towards the lake the temp was nudging sixty degrees with a very light breeze and high blue skies.
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| There's a lake through them there woods. |
The first victory of the day was getting the canoe through the woods and into the lake without any slips, trips, or falls. Victory number two was getting the two of us into the canoe without any slips, trips, or falls. We paddled across the lake to one of my favorite late March ice fishing spots. I have now classified it as one of my least favorite spots for open water fishing in early May. Along with most of the rest of the shoreline we paddled along for the first hour of our adventure - fishing was extremely slow, with the only bites I had coming from a birch tree, two different submerged pines, some variety of bog shrub, and a mystery object that was too deep to identify. I got lots of practice on knot tying when replacing the jigs I kept having to break off to get loose from those hungry inanimate objects. So for a while it looked as if this opening day excursion was going to be as productive as the the few other opening days I could remember. But at least the scenery was delightful.
We fished in shallow water to start our day, thinking a dark-water lake that had an earlier ice-out might have warmer water making the fish head to the shallows to begin preparations for spawning. We thought wrong. After breaking my line for the however-many-times-it-was I decided to tie on a bit larger jig and cast towards deeper water. A few casts later I had a bite, and a couple of casts after that I had a crappie. Then another, and another. My dad switched to a deeper water set up and soon was catching crappies, too. It wasn't fish after fish and they weren't very big, but we were catching something often enough to make the day more interesting.
We weren't catching what we really hoped to catch, the big bluegills we so often find under the late ice on this lake. I did catch a couple of small 'gills, but other than those it was just a crappie catching day. Nearly every other fish went on the stringer, none of them "big" but sizable enough to give up a couple of friable fillets. We were having our best luck in an area south of a beaver lodge that was nestled alongside the line where lake met bog; we would drift through, catch a few fish, then paddle back to do it again. Our lone near-disaster of the day occurred on one of those paddle-backs - as I was paddling on the left side of the canoe our stringer tied on the right side of the canoe came loose, letting our ten fish drift free in the lake. Luckily for us we were able to reverse course and get back to before the fish could organize their movements and dive to the bottom. No comment on whose job it was to tie the stringer securely in the first place.
At about 2:00 we decided it was time to leave; four hours in a canoe is plenty regardless of how nice the day is or how good the fishing is. Once again, in reverse, we were able to exit the canoe, unload our stuff, and get everything and everyone up the hill and back to the truck without incident. The quality of the fishing wasn't terrific but it easily could have been worse. The quality of the day could not have been better. I know there's an opening day somewhere in my future when I'll slide a canoe into Secret Lake #3 with one of my kids, or maybe a grandkid, to catch some small crappies while hoping for a big bluegill. With a little luck that coming day will be as enjoyable as this one was.
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